Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

Harbin

It may seem kind of stupid, but I've decided to take a short trip to even colder place than Beijing.

Today, I arrived in Harbin, a city up in China's northeastern corner.  Harbin is infamous for it's extremely cold winters; the average temperature in January is -2 degree Fahrenheit. My landlord told me when he went to Harbin, one of his ears froze and now he can't hear quite well from it anymore.

In spite of the temperatures, Harbin is a very pretty city and well-known for its ice sculptures. All across the city streets are statutes and art made out of blocks of ice.

While exploring Harbin last night, my classmate and I came across this statue of a Pac-Man. Sadly, we found no ice ghost statues chasing after it.

When I arrived in Sunday, the temperature was warmer than usual for Harbin. Still it was quite cold, at about 16 degrees Fahrenheit. It was somewhat painful to take these pictures, since it meant I had to take off my gloves and expose them to the cold air in order to properly hold my camera.  This picture is of Central Street.

I came to Harbin to meet several of my classmates already here. Tonight we visited an ice bar. The entire building was basically an igloo, with all the walls, tables and chairs fashioned out of ice. The makers had even carved an ice piano at the bar. As can be expected, it was quite cold in there. I felt a little sorry for the bartender.